Semantic Search Footnotes: Concepts, Ontologies & Real Time
I want to respond to a few comments/suggestions I received about my recent Intelligent Enterprise story, Breakthrough Analysis: Two + Nine Types of Semantic Search. Jim Hendler suggested a semantic-search approach I'd missed, "real-time search with some sort of filtering." I'll tackle that and points raised by NLP/semantics researcher Tom O'Hara...
SMB Trends To Watch In 2010
Technology consultants Access Markets International Partners have pointed to six trends among small and medium businesses that, they say, deserve more attention.
The Fritz & David Show: What a Week! Apple, Oracle, Rant
January 2010 won't go quietly, nor will Techweb's Chief Content Officer, David Berlind and I in our second podcast version of The Fritz & David Show where we give some of our final thoughts no the Apple iPad, and summarize the announcements coming from Oracle this week.
HP Extends Financing Plans
SMBs can get 0% lease financing on HP products for either 12-month or 36-month terms, with an option to purchase at the end of the lease. Both programs go into effect on Monday, February 1..
Search Keywords Mean Business
Businesses that focus on branded searches may be missing out on the visitor traffic that comes from generic search terms.
Google Makes Calling Directly From Ads Easier
Heaven forbid we actually have to dial a phone number any more. That would be awful. Google is saving smartphone owners, once again, from exercising their thumbs by adding a click-to-call feature directly in mobile ads.
iPad And SMBs, Take Two
Now that we've all found out what Apple has had up its sleeve all these months, we can start to assess the iPad's usefulness for business more confidently. At least one possible use case is clearly out the window -- at least for now -- but the demo introduced one no one had thought about.
The iPad: I Don't Get It
Good grief. Yesterday's breathless blogging would have you thinking the technology world has been changed forever with the new Apple iPad. So let me go on the record with a contrarian viewpoint. The iPad seems like an interesting device, but I can't see where it fits into most personal or business IT needs.
RatePoint Helps Resolve Customer Disputes
Customer review and survey service RatePoint claims that businesses who use its online testimonial services can resolve 90 percent of customer disputes before they turn into negative reviews. That's one of several pieces of advice the company offers small businesses trying to manage their online reputations.
Tech Resellers See Revenue Gain
Commercial resellers saw a rise in sales in December, indicating that tech spending among small and medium-sized businesses is on the rebound.
MicroStrategy Says It's Time for Mobile BI
"We are on the verge of a new era that will result in a new class of applications that will change the way we think about our business," says MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor. That era will be driven largely by mobile... Yes, mobile.
Your Dad's SLAs And The Cloud
I chatted recently with a number of vendors about service level agreements (SLAs) and cloud computing. Perhaps the quote from these conversations that resonated with me most was, "your dad's SLAs won't cover the use cases for cloud." And, it's true. I joke around that cloud computing is just renamed Internet computing or network computing, but when you start adding in the factors surrounding cloud, it's pretty obvious that Dad's role in cloud SLAs is as an advisor, not implementor.
Apple Releases iPad SDK In Beta
The software development kit is available to individuals and enterprises who wish to build proprietary tablet applications.
Oracle Outlines Post Merger Roadmap
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said Sun Microsystems will add $1.5 billion to Oracle's profitability within a year of the just-completed merger of the two companies.
Live Blog From Apple's iPad Launch
Being one of the lucky few to have scored a press pass into Apple's highly secretive launch event today, I will be live blogging the announcement with text and photos as it happens. So, starting at around 11:30 AM ET, be sure to refresh this blog entry (and refresh often) as I frantically attempt to bring you all there is to know about Apple's tablet (or whatever it is) in real time.
MSI Launches Atom N450 Netbook
The Wind U135 is powered by Intel's 1.66-GHz "Pine Trail" processor, which enables manufacturers to build smaller, more energy efficient netbooks.
Apple iPad Promises Media Revolution
The early speculation is that the tablet brings publishers hopes of new revenue for digital content while ushering in a shift in how users interact with the Web.
Cisco Offers Open Telepresence Standard
In agreeing to release its protocol to the public domain, Cisco joins Juniper Networks and Polycom in the growing trend toward collaboration among videoconferencing providers.
McGraw-Hill CEO Confirms Apple Tablet Details, Deal; Engadget Has Photo
On the eve of one of Apple's most yet anticipated product launches in history, McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw pre-empted Apple CEO Steve Jobs when he let slip confirmation on CNBC (video below) that Apple is indeed launching a tablet later today (Jan 27, 2010). McGraw revealed that it will run on the iPhone OS as well as details of the company's dealings with Apple. Separately, tech gadget site Engadget.com has what appears to be some very convincing photos of the device which it estimates to be 9
Netezza Skimmer Joins the Short List
The main news here is that you can buy a Netezza box for $125K, plug it in, load a few terabytes of data, and be good to go with a pretty solid data warehouse...
Google Friends Surveilled For Cyber Attack
Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of France's King Louis XIII, is generally credited with saying, "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
Richelieu's claim attests to the ease with which information can be misused. It's a lesson that Internet users might want to revisit in this age of online insecurity.
PC Processor Shipments Surge 31%
The worldwide microprocessor market left the recession behind, buoyed by growth in mainstream and performance processors for laptops and desktops and X86 server chips.
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